ascendance
by thirdmetaphor
Summary: To build an empire from ink and wood and fire. MadaHashi, HashiMito.


**Ascendance**

AU until it isn't.

* * *

When they're young he tells him they are just experimenting. But sometimes, after Madara rides him so harshly there can't have been more pleasure than pain in his eyes, Hashirama thinks there is something more. The Uchiha are secretive people who dream of bending people to their will, and Madara is not above things like that.

"This is so strange," he murmurs against the curve of his neck. "Every Uchiha and Senju in history would probably be turning in their graves, if they could see us now."

What would otou-san say if he could see his son intimate with the enemy? Is this betrayal? Hashirama wonders.

"Why should you care about something like that?" Madara asks as he curls his hand into Hashirama's lengthening hair for leverage and brings their mouths together. The Senju guardhouse is cool in the evening breeze but their sheets are tinged with the warmth that drips from their limpid forms, fiery to the touch.

Hashirama pulls away briefly. "It was just an observation-"

"Well then stop observing, it doesn't suit you."

"I mean," he gasps, "once we finish building the village, we could marry each other, right? That's what my ojii-sama and obaa-sama did when they founded the Senju clan. Won't it work for us too?"

"Boys don't marry other boys," he remarks tonelessly. "That's silly."

"Well then maybe we could just stay like this for a long-"

"Quiet!" Madara's voice rises momentarily before he calms, and turns to look at him. "I hate it when you say things like that. It's like waving fresh meat before a dog without every planning to actually feed it. It's cruel."

"I'm not sure I understand-"

"You don't need to," he says. "It's better if you don't."

Fresh meat. Is that what Madara thinks of his friendship?

Hashirama pushes his friend down gently into the sheets in the back of the old guardhouse, drinking in the desperation of his eyes. A sixteen-year-old boy shouldn't have to have a look like that. A sixteen-year-old boy shouldn't look like he'll have his world pulled out from under his feet any moment.

~o~

That year, Hashirama slowly understands what the shinobi mean when they say Fire Country is a land divided. Their Era has been named that of the Warring Clans. A hideous name. He's ashamed to be part of it.

He learns about the Uchiha, ruled over by Madara's father who is on his deathbed, the Hyuuga who prefer to remain secluded, and the Uzumaki, a mysterious clan of the south-west known for having skilled kunoichi who can seal away time itself. Out of all of them, the Uchiha are the only ones that persist in their independence. They anger the Hyuuga, openly fight against the Senju, and the Uzumaki stay far away from the heart of Fire Country as long as the Uchiha are there.

But Madara, Madara is different. This boy whose frailty betrays a growing strength is his key to understanding the power structure of the warring clans. From him, Hashirama learns of the draughts the Uchiha suffer through, in which as much as a fifth of their clan dies at once from lack of water that they are too proud to ask from others. He learns that Madara has shown himself to be, at sixteen, one of the most powerful shinobi the Uchiha can boast of, and his strength grows by the year as he spends every spare moment in the training fields, trying not to become his three elder brothers.

But Senju Hashirama is an idealist, and he can never forget the day Madara reluctantly nodded to his idea of founding a village.

Yet he abandoned it as soon as his father took to bed and had him instilled with the Uchiha legacy in preparation. This is why Hashirama is surprised when one day, when their clans are on the brink of open conflict, Madara agrees.

"Let's build this stupid village. I've been named Uchiha head, and I won't stand for another war with your damned clan."

"Is it the war that you're opposed to? I thought your people were a warlike clan by nature."

Madara is silent for a long while. When he speaks, his voice is filled with poison. "Don't you know? Injured people consume more food."

He nods. He knows that they have no medics. The Uchiha take less than they need in their stubborn pride and they can't afford to be pushed any farther.

~o~

Weaving the final treatise between the Uchiha and the Senju coaxes the Hyuuga out of their seclusion and sows the seed of interest in the Uzu people. Hashirama considers this his greatest accomplishment, and he knows Madara has worked tirelessly to the same end.

The night after it is signed and their clans are allied, he goes to the Uchiha compound. It remains a proudly empty place, and there are far too many elaborate rooms with nothing but the whispers of the dead to occupy them.

When he knocks on the door to the main house, it's answered by a younger boy with a white cloth tied around his eyes. "Hashirama-dono," the boy bows deeply, but there is something scathing in his voice. "Nii-sama is waiting for you."

'Nii-sama'. This is Madara's last remaining brother. He reaches forward, slips one finger under the boy's chin and tilts his face upward. "What is your name?"

"Izuna. Uchiha Izuna," he says, as if it isn't complete without the 'Uchiha'.

"Do you have your sight?"

"I do not, Hashirama-dono."

Hashirama frowns. It is unimaginable that Madara would allow his precious brother to be harmed. "How did you lose it?"

"It was a sacrifice," the boy replies plainly. He reaches forward for his hand, feeling blindly in the air until Hashirama offers it to him. "I will show you to my brother's workroom."

He follows, confused, but the Uchiha have always been secretive.

Madara's place is as elaborate as the others, with fine silk visible on the futon in the adjoining room, and Uchiha fans emblazoned over the walls. His ganbai leans against his desk, which is littered with trade papers. When he walks in, Madara is standing by them, ripping some to pieces.

"These ones are useless," he explains without looking up. "We have no need of melons or sugar canes from Tea Country. It's a waste of money that could be spent on metal."

"I'll leave that to you," Hashirama agrees. When he approaches, Madara glances at him, and his look resembles happiness as closely as it once had when they were boys.

"Come here," a hand on his arm pulls him into the adjoining room, with the silk-covered futon. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"We've been busy building a village-"

This time, Madara's lips are foreign against his. He's no longer a boy, and theirs is no longer an experiment, but Hashirama finds that the strangeness fades when they're pressed together again, gasping into each others mouths like they once did so often. Somehow, his armor and clothing falls off the side of the futon.

"Fuck me like you did all those years ago. They won't turn in their graves any longer."

"Are-are you-"

"Look, I'll even do this." Madara slides down on the bed, holds his long hair over his shoulder as he takes him into his mouth. He's rough, unyielding, reaching down to stroke himself just as roughly and Hashirama watches. His mouth contains a fiery heat that sends shivers through his spine and his movements are smooth, liquidlike, as if he's done it many times since then. Hashirama watches his friend's lips slip over his cock again and he doesn't let himself think any further.

"I'm starting to think I might have to resort to that marriage idea after all," he gasps, half-jokingly.

But when he glances down, Madara releases him and looks up with a sudden hatred in his eyes.

"Why-"

"I told you not to say that, idiot Senju."

~o~

Over the next year, Madara's temporary contentment flees quickly as he understands the truth behind the way the new villagers look at him. In his pride, he's disregarded their glances, assuming them to be a rightful fear. It takes a year for him to understand. The final nail is hammered in when it comes time to elect a Hokage, and the results are clear from the start.

"It's just that they don't know you very well," Hashirama tells him while they meet in the new Hokage's tower. "You cut an intimidating figure, most of the time. If you'd only be more lax-"

"Konoha has no more need for laxness, they already have you for that," he replies cuttingly. "One of us must take an iron hand in dealing with the people, or the other villages will think us weak."

"There's no need to be so militant-"

"Do not doubt my experience," Madara interrupts. "The Senju may like that sort of lenience, but the Uchiha cannot live like this, not for long. I've spent over ten years as their leader, and I know exactly how they must be ruled."

"Madara, I have no opinion," he sighs. "I think you would make just as good of a Hokage as I would."

"If only a single other person would share your confidence... Well, at the very least, I can rejoice in not having to marry that sheltered Uzu girl." His tone is practically drenched in sourness, and Hashirama feels more than twinges of pity. Madara has worked just as hard to accomplish their dream, but his ideology is too radical. Even to his own clan.

Everyone else goes on to believe the world belongs to Senju men and Uzumaki women and the Uchiha are fools to think otherwise.

~o~

Uzumaki Mito arrives in the new Konoha on the first day of monsoon, armed with the powerful silence of her eyes and the fine-tipped sealing brushes that have stained her fingers grey. He has lived in the world of men for too long to know how to act around her, but she is a forgiving girl with the wisdom of someone twice her age.

"Are you fine with this?" She asks him as they sit in the main room of the Senju compound, listening to the calming tic of the bamboo suikenketsu outside. "You seem somewhat hesitant, Hashirama-dono."

He hides the shakiness of his smile expertly, but he has no doubt she can see every twitch of his lips. This girl who has barely more than half his thirty years can glimpse what his own father could not. She can see past the meticulous façade he's built for his clan, and this fact both frightens him and cements in his mind the thought that he belongs with her. She is perfect.

"Is that not natural?" He says with his smile. "We will build a legacy together in this village. Surely that is legitimate cause for nerves?"

Mito looks out the window, and the tilt of her chin causes light to play across her hair, sending fire through every glimmering strand. She isn't a particularly stunning beauty, not like some of the Uchiha girls he's seen, but she is a majestic figure even at her young age, and is already the head of her clan after her grandmother's death. "It is impressive," she remarks, "how you have built all of this from nothing. I am honored to be married to you."

"The honor is mine, Mito-san," he replies.

He shoves the sudden image of Madara from his mind. Madara is gone. He has left the village, swearing never to set foot in it again. Thinking of him only brings a muted pain.

Uzumaki Mito.

He says the name, rolls it over his parched tongue, and it tastes of a new beginning.

~o~

When Madara arrives at the gate of the new hidden village of Fire Country one month later to see the results of his plan, he's faced with the sight of a girl, curled up on the ground before the entrance, holding her hands to her stomach. A few steps away ther. is an old woman who has died in the process, and her white hair still holds strokes of its former red.

The girl has long hair of the same shade that trails down to her stomach. Her kimono is torn open, revealing the expanse of smooth skin underneath, marred with the strokes of black ink over her stomach, inching up to run over her slight breasts. She holds a single sealing brush in her trembling hand, and the remnants of ink still drip from its hairs.

The dread of seeing her hits him all at once, and he doesn't need to decipher the seals on her stomach to know what she's done. He's heard the legends of Uzu kunoichi, and the ink they play with. He knows this is the girl his lover has married.

"Give it back," Madara shakes, taking an unconscious step forward. "Give me my weapon. I... I can't lose this as well."

She look up at him with eyes half-asleep, tinged with a red she struggles to control.

"No."

A tendril of the Kyuubi's chakra is released, and in his temporary weakness, he's forced to retreat.

~o~

The next time Hashirama sees him, it's in a valley near the village they've built, surrounded by the forests. He walks out of Konoha with a deep-rooted ambivalence in his heart and Mito's calming seal drawn carefully on the back of his hand. This is a place he and Madara came to as boys, and it will be the last place they visit together.

And Madara is already waiting, leaning back against the wall of the valley, arms crossed over his red armor. His hair has grown much longer and far wilder than the tamed stroke of ink it once was, and his eyes are wilder still. the eyes of a beautiful psychopath, and Hashirama feels the stirrings of regret rise in his stomach.

"Madara," he walks closer. "Come back to Konoha. There is still a place for you."

His friend looks back at him, and Hashirama understands that every shred of naivety has been wiped from his mind. "I am no longer interested in those pursuits. I have a different goal, and this will require your dead body."

"What do you-"

"There are greater things in life than building a village," Madara says, looking down at his hand. He unfurls his fist. "Things that would make this pitiful land tremble. Together we've created a village, but alone I will create a new world. One where-" He ends his sentence there, and whispers the rest to himself. 'One where you belong to me alone.'

Hashirama straightens, places his hands together, and calls the mokuton to his fingers. "Will you pose a danger to Konoha?"

"I will crush it in my path."

"Then I have no choice," tendrils of wood erupt from his hands. "You'll die here, Uchiha Madara."

There is a long silence in which Madara does not move to fight, simply remains stoically with his back to the rock walls, gazing across the valley. He strikes a forlorn figure. "You once considered the possibility of us getting married," he says quietly.

"Yes. And I've come to realized that there are more important things in life than happiness, especially when I have a country depending on my word," he replies. "If I didn't have so much to lose, I'd gladly return to our friendship. But I have no room to change, and the decision is in your hands, now."

In a rare moment of emotion, Madara's hands clench into fists and his brother's eyes blaze red. "You're trying to unload your guilt onto me, idiot Senju," he hisses. "I should have stopped this idea while it was growing. I should have let my traitor clan members die. They're as good as dead anyway. You've drained the Uchiha out of them."

They stand silent again. Finally, Hashirama speaks.

"If you decide against it, I am required to finish this here."

"Then do it," Madara's sudden grin verges on the edge of manic. "Do it, and let's see exactly which of us has wasted the past few years pandering to a useless dream!"

His words are ironic, and in the end it's still him that doesn't win.

But Hashirama walks away with the feeling that he hasn't, either.


End file.
